NHL players Chris Campoli and Ron Hainsey stood behind a crowded press conference Thursday night, staring daggers at the commissioner of the league growing ever so close to cancelling a season for the second time in eight years.

They watched and listened to an angry Gary Bettman question the players’ union’s tactics at these crucial stages of CBA negotiations and left the room with their resolve even stronger.

And with the game in as big a mess as it’s been since the work stoppage began almost three months ago.

“The fact is, they locked us out on the 15th of September,” Campoli said. “It was their decision and it continues to be their decision. Obviously, we want to be on the ice.

“It’s unfortunate because the fans suffer and we want to make our living and we’re not able to do that. Everyone who loves the game is suffering.”

Suffering and insufferable is what this lockout has become, reaching a new level of frustration as we’re mere days away from losing more games with only fleeting hope for a season at all.

Bettman, who is often painted as the villain when things go wrong with the game, was seething at the press conference Thursday, saying the latest work stoppage under his watch “torments him.”

There had been warning signs late Wednesday and again Thursday morning that the good will developed when a group of six owners met with 18 players Tuesday was starting to wane.

And then at a hotel just blocks off Broadway came the most dramatic act of this bizarre and twisting play.

When a meeting Thursday night lasted just an hour and Bettman didn’t even sit in on it, NHL Players’ Association chief Donald Fehr called his first press conference of the week and did his best to spin the story. It got the hockey masses excited that a deal was “very close” suggesting that it could be done by the weekend.

Flanked by more than a dozen players, including Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, Fehr broke to let the players do the talking, all of them expressing optimism and confidence they would be working before Christmas. Then the scrums were abruptly stopped for another Fehr appearance.

When he returned, Fehr had the gloomy news that he had been informed by a voice mail from the league that he may as well go home and all that had been gained in talks this week was off the table.

“It looks like this is not going to be resolved in the very near future,” Fehr said before placing the blame squarely back on the league.

Bettman and his staff were watching and listening in their offices a few blocks away and hustled back to the Westin Times Square hotel to have their own say. Equal time and equal opportunity to look foolish in the eyes of the sporting world for their inability to remain civil at arguably the most crucial time in negotiations.

At issue, from the league’s perspective, was the NHLPA’s refusal to play ball after NHL owners agreed to pony up the “make-whole” provision to $300 million from the $211 million that had been on the table previously. Bettman said the group of six owners that were involved in the talks earlier this week were essentially insulted by the reaction of the players. The two sides are also seriously divided on the length of a new CBA: The league wants 10 years, the union started at five.

“The owners wanted to do something bold,” Bettman said of the money they added this week. “They put a new $100 million on the table Wednesday night to show we want to play as soon as possible. The players’ response was shockingly silent and the owners were beside themselves. Some of them I’ve never seen so emotional and they told me the process is over.”

With the help of deputy commissioner Bill Daly, Bettman was able to keep talks alive for a while but the tension was so thick the string was bound to break.

“As difficult as this all is, having an agreement that doesn’t work and takes us back to an era where the game wasn’t healthy and doesn’t have the magnificence it has now, is something we don’t want to go back to,” Bettman said.

“I’m not happy about this, but I’ve got to play the hand I’m dealt and the respective long-term health of this game and these teams and this league.

“Am I unhappy about the prospect of (losing another season)? You bet I am.”

Bettman couldn’t resist poking Fehr, even as some of the players who have remained loyal to the renowned labour leader stood in the background. He accused the NHLPA of “cherry picking” the issues to talk about and said that in Fehr’s initial press appearance the union head unfairly raised the expectations of hockey fans who have been riding an emotional roller-coaster with each development in this lockout.

“I find it absolutely incomprehensible he would do that,” Bettman said. “The last time they said we were close, we were a billion dollars apart.

Where the talks go from here -- if anywhere at all -- is a major question mark. Suggestions that the union may decertify over the next little while will no doubt gain some traction and Fehr essentially said the league told him they may as well forget about having any talks on Friday. The league also rejected the union’s wish to have a mediator rejoin the proceedings.

Bettman was evasive on when more games might be lopped off the schedule, having already gone up to Dec. 14 and whether there is a “drop dead” date to salvage a portion of the season.

“My magic date was Oct. 11 when we should have opened the season with a new collective bargaining agreement,” Bettman said.

Trouble is, there’s little magic left now with the next date of consequence being the one that says expired.